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December 13, 2015

Environmental Headlines for the Houston Region: December 13, 2015

Featured

  1. Cool Roofs: Replacing asphalt shingles with reflective metal could curb the warming of Houston’s hot climate. (Ted Hesson – National Journal, 12/4/2015)
    “A home doesn’t al­ways de­scribe its own­ers, but this one, a mostly or­din­ary bun­ga­low, speaks volumes. Bob Ran­dall and Nancy Ed­wards, in their 70s, are long­time en­vir­on­ment­al­ists, known in Hou­s­ton for their prowess in urb­an garden­ing and their con­cern with man-made cli­mate change. Bob, a re­tired pro­fess­or of eco­lo­gic­al an­thro­po­logy at the Uni­versity of Hou­s­ton, was a cofounder and an ex­ec­ut­ive dir­ect­or of Urb­an Har­vest, a loc­al non­profit group. His wife, Nancy, was the treas­urer for Green­er Liv­ing in Hou­s­ton, an edu­ca­tion­al or­gan­iz­a­tion, and now helps to run a small en­vir­on­ment­al group. For dec­ades, the couple’s prop­erty has stood out for its hor­ti­cul­ture—man­gos, papay­as, per­sim­mons, ba­na­nas, blue­ber­ries. But the fea­ture that sets it apart these days is the re­flect­ive, white met­al, “cool” roof. The res­ult looks fu­tur­ist­ic, as if in­spired by the lid of an es­presso pot. Patrick Bu­lot, the own­er of South Shore Roof­ing, has a pat­ent pending for the design of his “Texas Smart Roof.” The roof is made of 15-inch lengths of mid-gauge steel coated first with an alu­min­um-zinc al­loy and then—this is key—with a spe­cial white (or light-colored) res­in-based ma­ter­i­al to re­flect sun­light away from the house. It also has a vent­il­a­tion area between the roof and the house that al­lows hot air to flow out through a vent at the top, to keep the at­tic from heat­ing up.”
    www.nationaljournal.com
  2. COP21: How excited/angry should I be? (Adrian Shelley – airCurrent News, 12/8/2015)
    “Depending on where you get your news, you may be hearing very different things about COP21. On the one hand, we have President Obama expressing optimism about the conference, going so far as to say about the issue of climate change, ‘I think we’re going to solve it.’ On the other hand, we have hundreds of people protesting the conference—sometimes violently—as an industry-led sham. Who to believe? My own personal view falls somewhere in the middle. Putting this conference into historical context, I think it is unlikely we will see a global solution to climate change any time soon.”
    http://airalliancehouston.org
  3. Invasive plants are growing problem on Texas waters (Shannon Tompkins – Houston Chronicle, 12/5/2015)
    “That autumn more than 15 years ago, the swarms of ducks that had poured into the shallow areas to feed on the native aquatic plants and seed didn’t come; the blanket of salvinia, which holds no food value for fowl or almost anything else except a weevil from the plant’s South American home, had smothered the native plants. Nothing for ducks to eat and not even a patch of open water on which they could land and rest. By spring, the fish – the bass and crappie and bream and even minnows – were gone. Just gone. So was every other living thing in the water – the scuds and crawfish and aquatic insects. The entire ecosystem was dead, the life smothered from it. ‘What makes salvinia so devastating is it grows so fast (doubling in volume in a matter of days) that it becomes a solid mat on the water surface,’ said Tim Bister, Marshall-based district fisheries biologist for Texas Parks and Wildlife Department’s inland fisheries division. ‘No sunlight can penetrate into the water, so it shades out and kills plant life. ‘Without those aquatic plants, which produce oxygen through photosynthesis, and the exchange of atmospheric oxygen as air mixes with water on the surface, dissolved oxygen levels plummet and fish suffocate in the sterile, oxygen-starved water.”
    www.chron.com

EcoNotes

  • 13 December
    • Historic moment: 195 nations agree to limit warming, turn from fossil fuels (Bill Dawson – Texas Climate News)
      http://texasclimatenews.org
  • 12 December
  • 11 December
    • Which Are the Most Polluted Cities in the US? (Kieran Mulvaney – D News)
      http://news.discovery.com
    • Stuff We Liked: Air Pollution and Movies Kind of About Christmas (Damon Darlin – The New York Times)
      www.nytimes.com
    • Texas A&M Forest Service Releases Winter Wildfire Forecast (Syeda Hasan – Houston Public Media)
      www.houstonpublicmedia.org
    • Ambition of Paris climate talks rises by half a degree (Valerie Volcovici – Planet Ark News)
      http://planetark.org
    • Look beyond hotspots to help people weather climate shocks: study (Laurie Goering – Planet Ark News)
      http://planetark.org
    • Calling time on a global climate deal: Fabius’s fuzzy ‘consensus’ (Alister Doyle – Planet Ark News)
      http://planetark.org
    • A new space race: satellites could test the world’s climate vows (Barbara Lewis, Richard Valdmanis and David Stanway – Planet Ark News)
      http://planetark.org
    • France: Final text of climate accord expected within hours (Karl Ritter and Angela Charlton – KFVS 12)
      www.kfvs12.com
    • EarthShare’s Green Gift Guide (EarthShare)
      www.earthshare.org
    • METRO’s Adopt-A-School Program Offers Holiday Magic to Kids in Need (METRO)
      http://content.govdelivery.com
  • 10 December
    • Texas Scientist Aims to Revolutionize Electricity Grid (Jim Malewitz – The Texas Tribune)
      www.texastribune.org
    • Railroad Commissioner Porter Drops Re-election Bid (Jim Malewitz – The Texas Tribune)
      www.texastribune.org
    • CATEE 2015: Clean Air Through Energy Efficiency Conference (Paige Powell – airCurrent News)
      http://airalliancehouston.org
    • EPA Plan Protects Oklahoma Wildlife Refuge From Texas Air Pollution (Times Record)
      http://swtimes.com
    • Game Warden Field Notes (Texas Parks & Wildlife)
      http://tpwd.texas.gov
    • U.S. solar industry battles ‘white privilege’ image problem (RIchard Valdmanis – Planet Ark News)
      http://planetark.org
  • 9 December
  • 8 December
    • COP21: How excited/angry should I be? (Adrian Shelley – airCurrent News)
      http://airalliancehouston.org
    • Lawmakers Grill Miller on Ag Fee Hikes (Jim Malewitz – The Texas Tribune)
      www.texastribune.org
    • 5 things to know about uranium found in drinking water (Ellen Knickmeyer and Scott Smith – WRAL)
      www.wral.com
  • 7 December
  • 5 December
    • Invasive plants are growing problem on Texas waters (Shannon Tompkins – Houston Chronicle)
      www.chron.com
    • LCRA Fights Release of Data on New Reservoir (Kiah Collier and Neena Satija – The Texas Tribune)
      www.texastribune.org
  • 4 December
    • Cool Roofs: Replacing asphalt shingles with reflective metal could curb the warming of Houston’s hot climate. (Ted Hesson – National Journal)
      www.nationaljournal.com
    • The Future Now: Living Carless in Houston (Carson Lucarelli – OffCite)
      http://offcite.org
    • Boardwalk under construction in the Trinity River National Wildlife Refuge (Vanesa Brashier – Cleveland Advocate)
      www.yourhoustonnews.com
    • Water as a Climate-Change Gut Punch in a City Defined by an Ocean (Lizette Alvarez – The New York Times)
      www.nytimes.com
    • Saving Wildlife with Robotics! (Elyse Mauk – Houston Zoo)
      www.houstonzoo.org
  • 3 December
    • It takes a village—and much more—to quench megacity water demands (Phys.org)
      http://phys.org
  • 2 December
    • Researchers Predict Texas’ Cotton Can Withstand Climate Change (Virginia Alvino – Texas Public Radio)
      http://tpr.org
    • The Real Cost of Green Infrastructure (Stormwater Report)
      http://stormwater.wef.org
    • Even the tiniest plastics found in the sea with new technology (Science Daily)
      www.sciencedaily.com
  • 24 November
    • Q&A: Outgoing sustainability director sees a greener Houston ahead (Erin Mulvaney – Houston Chronicle)
      www.houstonchronicle.com
  • 19 November
    • Schoolyard Wildlife Habitat Gives Hope (David Lavis, National Wildlife Federation – EarthShare)
      www.earthshare.org
  • 10 November